1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a conferencing and data collaboration operation and management system and method and, more particularly, to a managing, system and method for scheduling, monitoring and controlling of audio and video communication and data collaboration.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of audio and video conferencing, it is common to connect one or more locations for purposes of conducting an audio or video teleconference. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,572,248, 5,751,337, 6,160,573, 6,445,405, 6,654,045, 7,352,809, 7,116,350 illustrate a system and method for performing a real time and life size video conference wherein a plurality of conference participants participate in a video conference.
It is now becoming common that multiple conference locations and participants at different geographic locations are being networked together for purposes of conducting an audio or video conference.
In some prior art systems, a network operations center or (“NOC”), pronounced “knock” is used to control the conference and the network which enables the conference between two or more participants to occur.
In general, NOCs are responsible for monitoring the network for alarms or certain conditions that may require special attention to avoid impact on the network's performance. For example, power failures, communication line alarms (such as bit errors, framing errors, line coding errors and circuit down errors) and other performance issues may affect the network. NOCs analyze the problems and perform trouble shooting to try to eliminate the problems. Typically, this was done with site technicians and skilled computer technicians and other NOC personnel to identify the problem, analyze it and resolve it if possible. If a critical problem arises, for example, it is not uncommon that NOCs have procedures in place to immediately contact a human technician to remedy the problem.
NOCs typically escalate issues or problems in a hierarchic manner so if an issue is not resolved in a specific timeframe, the level of personnel is informed to speed up the problem remediation. For example, many NOCs identify problems with labels, such as critical, moderate and the like.
For video and audio conferencing, it is also necessary to provide personnel who schedule conferences, who monitor the conference for any problems and who can cause the conferences to occur as scheduled, at the correct starting time, with the correct participants, with the correct resources and the like. It is not uncommon that a typical operations center may have multiple personnel who are dedicated to scheduling conferences, monitoring them and then resolving issues relative to them.
Unfortunately, the NOC systems of the prior art were very labor intensive, requiring network engineers, software specialists and other high-level personnel to adequately perform the functions required by the NOC.
Another drawback of the prior art is that it impedes scalability that occurred by adding additional human operators which introduces additional opportunity for error.
Another problem with prior art is that it hindered or in some cases did not permit convergence of disparate systems or systems that ran on different platforms. For example, a commercial system from a first company that ran on a non-standard based platform could not interface with another company that was running on a different platform whether that platform was standard or non-standard. Interoperability is the ability for non-standard based system to communicate with the standard infrastructures and systems.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method that improves the management, monitoring and control of audio and video network operations, scheduling, monitoring and maintaining a high quality audio and video teleconference or data collaboration between or among a plurality of participants or locations and that reduces or eliminates the need for the technicians and engineers required in the past.